We need to talk about Madonna’s face

You’ll forgive Madonna for taking a few days to respond to the concern over her latest facelift. After all, the singer was transmitting the message all the way from Mars with the rest of the shiny-faced extraterrestrials.

While presenting the best pop duo award to Sam Smith and Kim Petras for their hit “Unholy,” Madonna took to the Grammys stage in what can only be described as Jigsaw cosplay, with alarmingly puffy, stretched-out skin that looked as if it could fling off at any moment.

When people online showed concern and sadness for what is clearly the sixty-four-year-old’s desperate attempt to cling to her youth, she claimed that she was the victim of “ageism and misogyny.” The singer wrote in a post on Instagram that she was living in “a world that refuses to celebrate women past the age of forty-five and feels the need to punish her if she continues to be strong willed, hard-working and adventurous,” blaming her appearance on a long-lens camera that would “distort anyone’s face.”

She went on to claim that throughout her career, she has been unapologetic for her “creative choices” and the way she looks and dresses. Madonna said this recent look, which is multiple surgeries, a horse whip and a collection of latex corsets, is just another attempt to “push boundaries.” This time, people aren’t buying it.

This time last year, the first photos of Madonna’s new “babyface” came out. After what was evidently a lot of surgery, some claimed she looked like a teenager. Then the pop icon started posting half-naked TikToks where she would spread her legs or stare scarily into the screen. As the year went on, her face got more swollen and distorted and her boobs got higher. Really. They’re near her chin.

Maybe she really does believe that this is just a new step in her evolution, like her penitent Catholic phase or the time she couldn’t stop kissing people onstage, but I don’t think Madonna can claim it’s “ageist” or “misogyny” to question why somebody went from one day looking like a normal middle-aged woman to Donatella Versace. This isn’t breaking boundaries, or defiantly being oneself; it’s attempting to conform to the beauty standards of the youngest generation, who are over forty years younger than she is.

What’s more tragic than Madonna nipping and tucking her face into a real-life Instagram filter is the fact that she has resorted to this generation’s manipulative technique of claiming that she is being victimized. Instead of looking in the mirror, realizing she looks absurd and getting on with it, she tells us this is our fault. We hate women. We despise older women.

Her cries of misogyny and ageism can be easily debunked when you look around and realize that female performers, especially older ones, have never been so celebrated.

Look at Jennifer Coolidge. The sixty-one-year-old actress, who is also partial to a bit of Botox and filler, has never been so revered. Last month, she scored her first Golden Globe and Critics Choice Award, and in September she won her first-ever Emmy for her role in The White Lotus; it was also her first time being nominated. Coolidge is the epitome of not giving a shit. If she turned up in public one day with a facelift, she certainly wouldn’t be bothered about a backlash.

The truth is that nobody cares if Madonna has plastic surgery. The singer is a pioneer who paved the way for a plethora of stars to follow. What people care about is being labeled as women-haters when they point out that maybe she’s gone too far.

Icons want to stay as iconic as they were when they were young and beautiful: it happens. The late Joan Rivers once said,“I’ve had so much plastic surgery, when I die they will donate my body to Tupperware.” Madonna: don’t preach. You’re in trouble.